“Protect your neck. You know these things.”
“It’s been a while, okay? And are you holding back?”
“Of course I am.”
“Well don’t!” I wiggled out of his hold, backing away from him and returning to my stance. “You being a sweet, docile instructor won’t save me.”
“You want me to be rough? Then I’ll be rough, Little Void,” he growled. Momentarily, I was lost in the promise, but thenhe charged at me, bending at the last second to lift me before bringing my back to the ground. I hit with a violent smack, his hand catching my head before it slammed into the frozen, dead grass.
Was I still breathing? No, that wasn’t possible. Breathing was a long forgotten memory, a reflex my body was no longer capable of. Sucking in gulps of air, trying to remind my lungs of how great it was to consume oxygen, I looked up wide-eyed at Az.
“Listen. I know you want to feel invincible. You’ve been underestimated by me and just about everyone else for the entirety of your life. It can be enticing to fight to prove yourself, but don’t do it at the risk of your safety. Let me train you the way I want to.” Pressure appeared at my temple, the pad of his finger firm as he rubbed the spot where my headache was already building. “Let me help make you into the monster your enemies fear haunt their shadows.”
A shiver crawled up my spine, shattering at the base of my neck and spreading across my skin. Azazel didn’t give me a chance to answer, instead he pushed off me, practically bouncing back onto his feet before offering me a hand up.
Reluctantly, I took it, submitting to his lessons. We fought slowly, his hits never hurting me and his instructions constant. When the woman leading training had us switch to a group run, we all lined up, taking a route around the entirety of the base. It wasn’t a strained or stressful run like the shaytan did. Instead, it seemed to focus on endurance. Az noticeably hated the pace, huffing and rolling his eyes periodically, but he eventually used the opportunity to talk.
“When I was five, my father took me on my first run. He told me if I didn’t beat him home he’d make me sleep outside.”
“You’re joking?” I knew he wasn’t, but every single story the cores told me stunned me completely.
Laughing, he said, “I slept outside for a month straight because I lost every single race. After, he told me that the lesson was to never forget that someone better could take everything from you at any given moment.”
“Brutal lesson for a five year old.”
“Especially when he knew I wouldn’t ever beat him. I still haven’t. Our last run was the day before the shadow ritual. He beat me by a handful of seconds. My punishment was that I had to walk to the meeting spot on the Sham and Star District border. Turns out, all of our parents did it to us. They’d planned it.”
Legs aching, I sped up, trying to match his pace as he subconsciously ran faster. When he noticed me coming up on his left, he slowed again, shaking his head.
“Doesn’t matter. He would have found a new way to make me fail. His father did the same. And his father. And his. I would’ve done it too, eventually.”
“You don’t know that,” I argued. Above us, snowflakes fell, landing in my eyelashes as the wind pressed into my skin. “You might have been different.”
“Priya always thought we would be, but I knew better. All of us were going to be the same merciless, hate-filled people our parents were.”
“Well, you aren’t that person now. That’s what matters.”
“Does it?” he asked as the group rounded a corner. We were far enough to the side that I was confident no one could hear us, but Az still seemed unsure, quieting as he said, “I’ve been thinking about why you don’t believe inus.And I’m starting to understand that it isn’t what we can become, it’s who we both represent. I’ll always be a core family member. An oppressor. A figurehead for purity and death. I don’t know how to come back from that.”
Stars, he was relentless. He was also right. How did he fight that to be something else? He was doing the work. Unlearning everything he’d been taught and fighting for better. But what did that really mean when his entire family tree was soaked in blood? Would he ever be more than an Altair?
Looking up at him, I knew that I could confidently say he was so, so much more. And maybe if I was brave enough I’d tell him that none of the past mattered. Perhaps if my family were alive and I wasn’t fighting for their memory I’d selfishly pick him.
“All you can do is spend every day proving to the world that you’re more than the name you were born with. Don’t do it for me. Do it foryou.For the legacy you want to leave behind.”
The crinkle of his eyes was pained, his lips pursing. We stayed silent for a few seconds, the conversation seemingly over. I tried to focus, but I couldn’t stop staring at him. He was truly so beautiful. A living sculpture made of stone and cracks—carved from violence and pain.
Out of nowhere he smiled and said, “Race you.” Then the snake took off. I gasped, pumping my arms and lengthening my strides until I caught up to him. He laughed as we pushed ourselves faster, quickly overtaking the front half of the group.
Someone yelled at us, but we didn’t care. We just moved faster. Soon I was smiling too, my side aching and my legs burning. When Azazel stopped ahead of me, signaling we’d made it to the end, I allowed myself the simple pleasure of barreling into him, taking us both to the ground. Our laughs were loud and violent, but we couldn’t seem to stop.
“My father would have hated that,” he said between gasps. I rolled to my side, shivering from the cold of the grass against my leathers.
“Good.”
Chapter Thirty
Nova
